Shutting Powell's Mouth

New York's Democratic Congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr. is a much criticized man, but he has a handy retort to any charge leveled against him: the critic, says Powell, is obviously prejudiced against Negroes.

Last February, for example, Delaware Senator John J. Williams publicly criticized Harlem Congressman Powell for wasting federal funds, junketing to Europe with two female staff members, and paying his wife a congressional staff salary of $13,000 a year, although she spends most of her time at the Powell villa in Puerto Rico. Powell replied that he was being attacked because he is a Negro.

When the House voted to cut appropriations for Powell's Education and Labor Committee by 40%, the word from Powell's side was that Negro-hating Southern Congressmen arranged the reduction. Last week, after Powell attacked the N.A.A.C.P. on the strange ground that it is controlled by whites, the sober New York Times rumbled that he was "busily making himself one of the greatest enemies of the American Negro in public life." Powell had his answer ready. The Times, he said, is "very biased."

Powell throws the "anti-Negro" stone as a weapon of attack as well as defense. Three years ago he charged that the New York City police department practices discrimination against Negroes. In the course of a House speech on that subject, Powell declared that one Esther James, a Harlem Negro, had been "extorting money from gamblers for the purpose of transmitting this money to police officers.'' Later, in a TV interview, he called Mrs. James "a bagwoman for the police department." That seemingly pointless attack on one of his own race proved to be a costly blunder.

Mrs. James, 66, a widowed domestic, sued Powell for $1,000,000. Powell's lawyers produced two men who testified that they were gamblers and that they regularly paid Mrs. James for protection against arrests. A police officer called by Mrs. James's lawyers testified that she was actually an enemy of gamblers, often reported their activities to him.

Last week the all-white jury deliberated 3 1/2hours, turned in a judgment requiring Powell to pay Mrs. James $211,500. "This is the happiest day of my life," cried Mrs. James. "The king is dead. Adam Clayton Powell is dead. Now he will just have to keep his big mouth shut." Powell, though hardly dead, was indeed uncommonly silent. And no wonder: he could hardly claim that in deciding against him the jury had shown prejudice against Negroes.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.